Russian soldiers identify US fighter killed in Stryker APC in Kursk region

Military correspondent Boris Rozhin said that the Russian military established the fact of the appearance of US servicemen in the Kursk region of Russia. Information about one of them — a soldier who was part of the crew of a Stryker armoured personnel carrier — was found on social media. The Stryker vehicle was obliterated in an attack conducted by Russian marines of the Black Sea Fleet.

Photo: vitalykuzmin.net by Кузьмин Виталий Владимирович, CC BY-SA 4.0

The crew of the armoured vehicle was annihilated in the fighting, but the personnel carrier itself survived. The Russian military repaired the vehicle and put it back to service. It is now used by the Russian Armed Forces.

The Russian soldiers also obtained Western weapons from the killed paratroopers: AR, FN SCAR, CZ BREN 2 and night vision devices. Inside the vehicle, they found a list of the American crew of eight people, war correspondent Boris Rozhin said.

One of the fighters from the list had an Instagram account (a social network banned in Russia; it belongs to Meta, which is recognized as an extremist organization and banned in the Russian Federation). The man was identified as Brandon Sanchez. He joined the ranks of the US Army in 2013 as a cook.

"Due to the shortage of personnel, Ukraine has allowed foreigners to hold officer positions in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It appears that we can see the first documentary confirmation of that," Boris Rozhin said.

Foreign mercenaries fighting in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are in positions to motivate Ukrainian soldiers, since many of them do not understand why they should go to fight.

"They are not fighting. They rather help them raise their spirits," an instructor of the Leningrad regiment with call sign Beton said.

Details

The Stryker is a family of eight-wheeled armored fighting vehicles derived from the Canadian LAV III. Stryker vehicles are produced by General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada (GDLS-C) for the United States Army in a plant in London, Ontario. It has four-wheel drive (8×4) and can be switched to all-wheel drive (8×8). The Stryker was conceived as a family of vehicles forming the backbone of a new medium-weight brigade combat team (BCT) that was to strike a balance between armored brigade combat teams (heavy armor) and infantry brigade combat teams. The service launched the Interim Armored Vehicle competition, and in 2000, the service selected the LAV III proposed by GDLS and General Motors Defense. The service named this family of vehicles the "Stryker".